


Vices

by strikeyourcolors



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Brotherly Bonding, Cockblocking, Damian Wayne Feels, F/M, Gen, Humor, Oblivious, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-09-18 16:36:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9393902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strikeyourcolors/pseuds/strikeyourcolors
Summary: Crime fighting is stressful. Everyone has a different way of coping with it...and Damian is getting very much in the way of Bruce's. To the point he has to call Dick in to negotiate a way out. Of course this wasn't going to end without a very awkward conversation with Damian. A Robin just keeps learning new things.Mostly humor. A little fluff. Some of Bruce being an infamous playboy. Pity Dick for having to talk to him and Damian for having to listen.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I have very few excuses except the phrase "Damian, you have got to stop cock-blocking Bruce" popped into my head and demanded to be written. This is definitely not my best and not to be taken too seriously.

He knew he'd left it _somewhere_ and of course he'd found it in the Batcave. He'd been reading the novel on modern warfare while Father did that insipid briefing with the Justice League and he was told to stay quiet and out of sight. Of course he was also supposed to be paying attention, but he could do that and read. It wasn't difficult. 

There was someone else in the Cave. Someone who shouldn't be there under most circumstances. "Are you injured?" Damian asked simply as he wandered by the medical bed where they performed most of their patch work. He still had his book clutched in one hand.

Selina Kyle made a very non feline noise as she jerked as much of her catsuit as she could manage back over her, arms crossing to hide her breasts as she stared at Damian. Her lips were parted but she couldn't seem to form words. She hadn't even known the kid was down here. What kind of master thief did that make her?

"You are on our medical table," Damian pointed out, gesturing under her where a surgical drape was wadded up under her thighs. She winced; yeah she and Bruce weren't exactly discretionary about where they decided to do these things when they got going. He'd carried her here and dropped her down and there she had stayed, struggling out of her clothes while he stepped away to fetch what was necessary the encounter. "Are you injured? Where is Father?"

He was speaking to her slowly. Either he was suspicious or he thought she had a head injury. Selina was kind of hoping he decided she had a concussion and left her alone. She drew her legs up, way too aware she was stripped down to her panties and that they were definitely more a thong cut than a bikini cut. "He's just getting some supplies..." Which was fortunately when Bruce rounded the corner and thank God he still had his pants on. "You told me he was out on patrol," Selina hissed. 

Bruce stared. The mostly naked woman was in his line of sight, but Damian...Damian was standing just beyond her and watching them with a kind of intensity even he found unnerving at times He folded the foil packet he'd retrieved in the palm of his hand, edging up behind Selina which fortunately could hide everything below the waist from view. "Why are you down here?"

Damian lifted up the book in his hand. His gaze was still on Selina. "I do not see any blood."

"It's a poison," Bruce said quickly. "We're about to run a scan. Go upstairs."

There was murder in Selina's eyes. She turned around, her back to Damian as she started to get dressed. "I'm really feeling much better, actually. I should get going." 

"Poisons can give that feeling momentarily before they kill you," Damian offered helpfully. 

"Go! Upstairs!" Bruce snapped. "You have the night off! You should be asleep!" He reached for Selina. She slapped his hand away. Oh, that's right, he'd told her that Robin was on patrol.

"I think I'll take my chances with the poison," She replied, zipping up the suit and looking for her boots. "Maybe next time, Batman."

Damian went upstairs. If the woman wanted to throw her life away, who was he to stop her?

~*~*~

Changing from Robin into pajamas wasn't uncommon for Damian. Leaving his room again immediately afterward was. But it had been nearly four days since he actually saw his Father. He'd only arrived back to Gotham that afternoon and he had immediately left for a charity gala, leaving Damian to patrol alone. He wasn't in the Cave when he returned, despite the security system agreeing with Damian's assessment that he was in residence. 

He padded nearly silently to his father's room and rapped on the door. He heard movement from inside. Blankets being tossed around. "Father?" He called out, just in case Bruce was unclear of who was waiting. Sometimes he woke up a bit slowly. 

His father opened the door only a crack. Damian could see he was wearing a robe. "What do you need?" He asked and Damian felt suddenly foolish. He didn't need anything and it felt suddenly idiotic to say he had simply wanted to see Bruce. It was such a short absence. He could have waited to see Bruce at breakfast. 

But Bruce was looking at him expectantly. Almost with a bit of annoyance in his eyes. There was no point in retreating now. "I had a nightmare," He said automatically. He did have nightmares, though now he usually ended up prowling the length of his room with every light turned on instead of rushing to his father. He was experimenting with these little lies, trying to tell which ones his all seeing father found too obvious. 

It wasn't even that much of a lie. They all had nightmares and Damian was sure if he'd gone to sleep he would have had one.

"Damian," Bruce began, but a feminine voice interrupted him. 

"How awful! You poor thing!" The woman who appeared behind Bruce wasn't someone Damian recognized right away. She was short, with hair so pale that it looked silver in the moonlight. She was wearing one of his father's t-shirts as she rushed forward, pushing the father aside to try to embrace the son. Damian dodged. She looked at Bruce. "You didn't tell me you had a kid."

"Everyone in Gotham knows I have a son," Bruce replied helplessly, like that meant he was excused from bringing him up.

Damian cringed back from her touch as she tried to stroke like he was some type of friendly dog who was visiting. "You just come right in, sweetie. Do you want to sleep in here tonight? With your dad?"

No. No Damian definitely did not want to do that. He also didn't need permission from her to enter any room in this house. On the rare instances he needed companionship after a dream and he sought out his father, they would go to another room to chase the ghosts away. The library, or the living room, or the kitchen. Sometimes Bruce took him back to his own bedroom to put him back to bed. He didn't sleep in his father's bedroom. That was for a child much younger than he was and a weak one at that. "No," He said. He would have elaborated but he could only repeat. "No."

"It's okay if you do," The woman said. She gave Bruce a kiss on the cheek as she rose to her feet. "I understand. I have a little girl of my own and I should get back to her. Maybe we can set up a play date!"

Damian stared at her. How old did this woman think he was? "I'm just going to go back to bed." He started edging away.

"I think that would be best," Bruce replied, and slammed the door. 

~*~*~

Another charity event Damian was bored at. Another night of drinking sparkling fruit juice out of a champagne flute and shuffling around with strict orders not to attack anyone who was not openly a combatant. Not many people wanted to approach him when he wasn't attached to his more famous brothers or father.

He made a game of circling the room, guessing at how many people would be wiped out by assassins and in which order they would die depending on where the entrance point was.

Eventually he realized he'd lost track of Bruce. He glanced at his watch. It wasn't time to leave. He hadn't seen the bat signal in the sky. Had his father simply left him behind? Was he waiting with Alfred, wondering why Damian wasn't following? Had Damian missed some subtle gesture from him that announced their impending exit?

Damian stomped toward the coat room, ringing the bell for service as he fished the little ticket he'd used to check his coat out of his pocket. No one appeared. "Useless," He snarled to the seemingly empty room, tearing his way behind the counter. He at least remembered the general area where they'd put his coat. He could retrieve it himself. Though why did it seem every coat was black? Didn't men's coats come in another color?

He shoved another rack out of the way, at last coming upon the one with his coat on it. He made a sound of triumph before striding forward and realizing someone was over there. Behind the next rack. There was a woman making breathy, high sounds in her throat. A man's low voice and...

And it was his father. With the girl working the coat check. 

He turned around, intent on leaving as quickly and quietly as possible. He spun around the corner, not realizing his coat had caught on the current metal bar being used to hang the larger handbags. The rack came crashing to the ground, spilling purses and their contents all over the floor.

Damian ran out of the room. He didn't look back. 

~*~*~

"Little D," Dick said as they sat at the kitchen table playing dominoes. Grayson was visiting and he always insisted they participate in some type of mundane, normal game. He felt it made Damian calmer and would give him some common ground with people his own age. Damian had found that particular parenting book Grayson consulted and read it before. He could play along, but only because he knew Grayson would soon grow bored and the game would devolve into them setting up the dominoes in an elaborate pattern in order to knock them over. He actually liked doing that. "Damian," Dick repeated. "You have got to stop cock-blocking Bruce."

Damian stared at him.

Dick sighed. "Do you know what that means?” He asked. 

“From the definition of the two words I can gather what it means. I am not a simpleton.” 

“Look, I think it's kind of hilarious. And I know he's way less discreet than he thinks he is. He's not exactly a smooth operator when he's Brucie, right?" He pursed his lips. He had to be serious. He was trying really hard. He knew Bruce wouldn't have mentioned this thing to him if he didn't want him to run some sort of interference but expecting him not to even snicker during it was really asking too much. Speaking of too much, he leaned forward, grinning "So how naked was Selina?"

"She was down to her underwear for a scan, Grayson. She had just been-" Damian stopped. His eyes widened a fraction. "She didn't actually get poisoned, did she?"

"No, Little D. There wasn't actually any poison or any scan." Dick waggled his eyebrows “How'd she look? I mean, I doubt she got uglier but I haven't seen her in a while and haven't seen her topless in even longer than that.” 

The question was met with a hostile glare and a firm changing of the topic. Sort of. Away from Selina, at least. "He was pursing a coat check girl, Grayson. A _peasant_ ," Damian protested. "In her place of employment where anyone might happen upon them."

"I was in Paris once with him and he was in the hotel bathroom with the maid," Dick replied. "A French maid. Does he think he's playing sex stereotype bingo when he's Brucie?" Then he seemed to realize what he had actually been called in for, and it wasn't dishing dirt on Damian's father. He cleared his throat. He was still mastering this kind of conversation to have with his brothers. It was so much easier to give them a box of condoms and tell them to call if they had any questions. "He really needs that stress relief, though. And did you see the scratches Selina left on him?" Dick gave a low whistle. "That woman was pissed."

"Stress relief," Damian scoffed. "As though the baser instincts would provide any sort of stress relief for the work Father does."

"Wait until your balls drop and we'll have this conversation again. Maybe because you will have found your own coat check girl or master thief in a leather suit or..." He glanced at Damian expectantly. 

"His bedroom," Damian supplied. "He had a woman in his bedroom." 

"I knew there was a third time." Dick stretched his arms over his head, intensely studying the dominoes on the table that had been played. "We all have our vices when we get stressed. Babs used to knit rage sweaters. Jason runs an illegal gambling ring. You bite people. I send nude pictures to my ex girlfriends for them to masturbate to. Tim eats his weight in Oreo cookies and then throws up.”

“I could have lived quite well without knowing most of those things,” Damian interrupted. 

“My point is that Bruce's vice is well known to be having sex with women he doesn't love,” Dick told him so it would seem like he was actually going somewhere with this conversation. “And he gets irritable when he's deprived of it. I get how you feel, Babybat. I really do. I walked in on him more times than I'm actually comfortable remembering." The parent book said something about empathizing, didn't it? About making yourself relate-able to your child?

Damian frowned. That wasn't an uncommon expression for his face but it was distinctly the thinking frown and not the about to bite a face off frown. "What did you do about it?"

"I walked right back out," Dick answered easily. As though it were that easy. As though it were not seared into Damian's brain. "This awkward shit is going to keep happening as you get older. Ignore it and Bruce will never bring it up again. You know what they say. He's more afraid of you than you are of him."

“Grayson, that is for wild animals.” But Damian considered the advice. "Will _you_ ever bring it up again? Any of this?"

"Only on your birthday or your wedding day or when you get too big for your britches," Dick replied. "Which is a lot, actually. So stop acting like a little prince and I'll stop bringing up how many times you've cock-blocked your dad. I'll even teach you his tells so you know when to make yourself scarce and go solo Robin for the night.”

Damian huffed and slid a tile across the table to start the game again. Dick rested a hand on his shoulder. "We've all been there, Dami. Just close your eyes and think of Gotham."


End file.
